They broke the mold when they made you. RIP to a master of the written word.

I Believe

I believe in steep drop-offs, the thunderstorm across the lakein 1949, cold winds, empty swimming pools,the overgrown path to the creek, raw garlic,used tires, taverns, saloons, bars, gallons of red wine,abandoned farmhouses, stunted lilac groves,gravel roads that end, brush piles, thickets, girlswho haven’t quite gone totally wild, river eddies,leaky wooden boats, the smell of used engine oil,turbulent rivers, lakes without cottages lost in the woods,the primrose growing out of a cow skull, the thousandsof birds I’ve talked to all of my life, the dogsthat talked back, the Chihuahuan ravens that followme on long walks. The rattler escaping the cold hose,the fluttering unknown gods that I nearly seefrom the left corner of my blind eye, strugglingto stay alive in a world that grinds them underfoot.